


Never high enough

by fardareismai



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Tumblr Prompt, nine and kid rose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-03-07 02:58:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18864331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fardareismai/pseuds/fardareismai
Summary: From a Tumblr Prompt: Nine/3-year-old Rose crying





	Never high enough

**Author's Note:**

> I'm trying to get some of my Tumblr fics onto AO3 in case Tumblr goes away in the end.

Rose was asleep in her bedroom.  The Doctor had teased, cajoled and even (to his very great embarrassment) pouted to try to convince her to stay with him, but she had insisted that she needed her “beauty sleep.”

Far be it from him to inform her that she was the most beautiful thing he’d seen in some ten centuries of time and space.  He thought back to what he’d said to her the previous day… “for a human” his left foot, but he’d been so overwhelmed and then so very embarrassed, he’d had to say something.

He could be a real idiot sometimes, the Doctor thought to himself.  The TARDIS gave a chime of agreement, and he directed a glare at the Time Rotor in irritation.

Ah well, The Doctor didn’t need his noisy human companion to have a good time, he thought to himself.  He’d set the TARDIS on random and have an adventure wherever he landed without her.  He ignored the way his heart ached and his left hand twitched, even as he set the randomizer.

He also ignored the TARDIS’ annoyed huff in his mind as the universe opened with a groan and a whine and he landed at his new destination.  He bounded across the console room and threw open the doors to…

“Earth?” he cried in disgust, turning back to his oldest companion with a look of great irritation.  "All of time and space and you bring me to Earth in the,“ he glanced around to assess the timelines, "early nineteen-nineties?  What is wrong with you?”

The TARDIS remained sulkily silent in his head, and he huffed out an irritated breath.  He looked about again.  London even, he thought grumpily.  South-East side… Peckham, actually.

The Doctor suddenly felt wary.  This was Rose’s neighborhood, in fact.  And she was here, he was certain.  Somewhere nearby, his intuition stated.  The TARDIS always seemed to have a reason for bringing him anywhere, and it seemed she had more in mind today than just a quiet outing while his companion slept.

“You’d better not be messing around with Time,” he hissed at the old box, warningly.

She sent a wave of chastisement toward him that served to remind him that it was usually  _he_  that tended to muck about in time.   _She_  was usually the one left to clean up  _his_  messes.

Fair enough, the Doctor thought, and set off down the road to determine what it was that the TARDIS expected him to do here, and hoping it didn’t have anything to do with facing down the inimitable Jackie Tyler before he’d even met her.

His intuition, time sense, and the TARDIS’ psychic hum in the back of his mind led him across a few streets and to the foot of the building where he’d parked the TARDIS the last time he’d been in London (a few years later).  A block or two later, he found himself at the play park outside of which he had taken Rose Tyler’s hand and told her about the turning of the Earth.  She’d looked at him with those soulful brown eyes, and, for the first time, it had seemed that the Earth, Time, and the Universe stopped.

And there she was again, small (were he to guess, he’d say three or only barely four years old, but it was so hard to tell with humans), beautiful, and rushing towards disaster all-unknowing.

She was swinging on an old, steel swingset, pushing herself higher than was advisable and squeeling in delight.  Jackie was nowhere to be seen, and the Doctor could see a timeline, clear and bright as the sun itself where she tried to jump off her swing at the height of its parabola and the ensuing fall twisted her neck and back so that she would never walk again.

Almost instinctually, the Doctor manipulated time just the slightest bit (but plenty to have him brought in front of the Time Lords, were there any to hold him to judgment) and instead of jumping at the height, she fell off the swing as it came nearly to the bottom.

She was scraped up, crying, dirty, and angry, but she was alive, whole, and largely unhurt.

The Doctor grinned to himself and watched Jackie appear at the sound of her daughter’s tears, and felt the TARDIS purr in the back of his mind.

All was as it should be.


End file.
